Mpur (also known as ''Amberbaken'', ''Kebar, Ekware,'' and ''Dekwambre''), is a

language isolate Language isolates are languages that cannot be classified into larger language families. Korean and Basque are two of the most common examples. Other language isolates include Ainu in Asia, Sandawe in Africa, and Haida in North America. The nu ...

spoken in and around Mpur and Amberbaken Districts in

Tambrauw Regency Tambrauw Regency is a regency of Southwest Papua Province, Indonesia. Geography Tambrauw Regency is a new regency located in Bird's head region of Papua Island. Geographically, Tambrauw. Regency is located at 132035' East Longitude (East Longitude ...

of the

Bird's Head Peninsula The Bird's Head Peninsula ( Indonesian: ''Kepala Burung'', nl, Vogelkop) or Doberai Peninsula (''Semenanjung Doberai''), is a large peninsula that makes up the northwest portion of the island of New Guinea, comprising the Indonesian provinces o ...

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; id, Papua, or , historically ) is the world's second-largest island with an area of . Located in Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is separated from Australia by the wide Torr ...

. It is not closely related to any other language, and though Ross (2005) tentatively assigned it to the

West Papuan languages The West Papuan languages are a proposed language family of about two dozen non-Austronesian languages of the Bird's Head Peninsula (Vogelkop or Doberai Peninsula) of far western New Guinea, the island of Halmahera and its vicinity, spoken b ...

, based on similarities in pronouns, Palmer (2018), ''Ethnologue'', and ''Glottolog'' list it as a language isolate.

Locations

, ethnic Mpur people reside in Kebar District, Kebar Timur District, Manekar District, Amberbaken District, Mubrani District, and Senopi District. Villages include Akmuri, Nekori, Ibuanari, Atai, Anjai, Jandurau, Ajami, Inam, Senopi, Asiti, Wausin, and Afrawi.

Phonology

Consonants

Consonants in Mpur are:

Vowels

Mpur has five vowels: /a, e, i, o, u/.

Tones

Mpur has a complex tonal system with 4 lexical tones and an additional contour tone, a compound of two of the lexical tones. Its tonal system is somewhat similar to the nearby Austronesian languages of

Mor Mor or MOR may refer to: Names and titles * Mór (given name), a list of people named Mór or Mor * Mor (surname), a list of people named Mor or Mór * Mor (honorific), or Mar, in Syriac Radio and television * Middle of the road (music) genre * ...

and Ma'ya. The neighboring language isolate Abun is also tonal. Mpur has four lexical tones. There is also a fifth complex contour tone formed as a phonetic compound of two lexical tones. An example minimal set is given below. *''bé'' ‘but’ (high tone) *''be'' ‘in’ (mid tone) *''bè'' ‘fruit’ (low tone)

Vocabulary comparison

The following basic vocabulary words are from Miedema & Welling (1985), as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database: :

References

External links

* Materials on Karnai are included in the open access collection
AC1
an
CVL1
held by

Paradisec The Pacific and Regional Archive for Digital Sources in Endangered Cultures (PARADISEC) is a cross-institutional project that supports work on endangered languages and cultures of the Pacific and the region around Australia. They digitise reel- ...

. * Audio and video recording are also available a
the DoBeS archive
{{West Papuan languages West Papuan languages Languages of western New Guinea Language isolates of New Guinea Tonal languages